


Hourglass

by BrunetteWrites



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Time Travel, Women Being Awesome, Women In Power, Xavier Institute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-25 23:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15651537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrunetteWrites/pseuds/BrunetteWrites
Summary: Their return to Xavier’s was supposed to be a long overdue vacation. Where Darcy Lewis could see her parents outside of a Skype call and Jane could rub minds with Eric (who had joined them for the trip) and the Doctors Three. She had been looking forward to not living out of a suitcase for a few weeks.Darcy had been looking forward to the pillow topped mattresses that awaited her in the guest wing of the Institute. Of catching up with Mavi, Kitty, and even freaking Logan and eating her weight in decent pizza. That all dissolved before her very eyes when Iron Man disappeared in an alien spacecraft, a frazzled Pepper Potts arrived at their door demanding to see the Professor, and Kitty Pride and Jean Grey crumbled into ashes before her eyes.Earth's mightiest heroes were broken, and it fell on the shoulders of five woman to right Thanos' wrongs.Who ever said time travel was impossible?





	Hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, Captain America, or Thor it is without prejudice property of Marvel Comics/Entertainment/Studios Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby. nor do I own the X-Men, it too is without prejudice property of Marvel Comics/ Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, The Donners' Company. I own only my original characters. In other words, if you recognize it I don't own it. I own only my original characters. It is without prejudice property of the legal owners. In other words, if you recognize it I don't own it. I claim ownership of only my original characters. If contacted this will be removed.
> 
>  
> 
> A/N: Also I tweaked Nate Barton’s age; he’ s only a year and a half as I expedited the time plot between Ultron and Infinity Wars.

 

 

 

Chapter One:

 

 

The sun was rising, heralding the beginning of another day in paradise. Hues of pinks, oranges, and deep golden yellow reflected off the cascading water, as it tumbled over the falls, casting a stunning mosaic of color across the green moss covered rocks and the pool below. Plants and fuchsia and white topped blooming bushes surrounded the waters edge, danced wafting their delicate fragrances on the breeze. Fallen petals dipped and bobbed on the ripples, and swirled in the frothy current of the falling stream, it was a scene that would have been a home on a postcard. Inviting, romantic, with a rustic beauty only nature could provide. The simple white cotton of her nightgown adhered to her thighs, as she waded deeper into the pool. Birds danced and soared across the shadows of the cresting sun, their twittering songs welcoming the dawn. Rock and mud gave way beneath her feet and she willingly fell into the watery depths.  

Opening her eyes she delighted as a friendly fish bumped against her extended finger in greeting, before fluttering off in search of breakfast. Bobbing in the depths she basked dull lingering silence. Here she felt untouchable. Impenetrable. As if in the few precious moments she spent in the depths protected her from the world that haunted her steps. Here encased in walls of water she was free. Free of lifetimes of memories and the nightmares. Bubbles of carbon dioxide escaped her lips and with a fizzing rush speed upwards to pop on the surface. She grinned, doing playful spins and somersaults. A cascade of bubbles flowed from her mouth as she gave a small laugh when she had to bat the sodden fabric of her nightgown away when it flapped over her head. When the familiar burn in her lungs began, demanding fresh air, she sadly kicked her way back to the surface. She burst forth with a gasp, sucking in greedy breaths of fresh air, before relaxing back into the water. Bobbing gently along the placid water on her back, her arms splayed out at her sides, fingers combing through the cool water, platinum hair flowed behind in a curtain of heavy curls.

A feeling of sleepiness began to creep in, after days of insomnia and she sighed in contentment a small smile curling at her lips. Her exhaustion was finally settling deep within her bones, bringing with it the promise of a dreamless sleep. The serene boobing of her body floating along the water served as a lullaby rocking her toward dreamland. The heavy fog of sleep began its descent, when something tickled along her spine. Her brow furred but she stubbornly shook it away, with a petulant whine. She needed even a few stolen hours of rest. But her senses refused to be ignored, as the tickle in her back flowed forth; prickling at her her arms making the delicate hairs stand on end. Still she refused to be summoned, until the irksome buzzing beneath her flesh blossomed into pain. She cursed, her body briefly sinking beneath the water, in surprise. She surfaced spluttering and swatting matted hair from her face, her peaceful morning now nothing more than a memory. 

She swore, glaring up at the heavens and silently demanding why God had cursed her to such an existence. He answered in his own way, as she got to her feet, bare toes sinking in the sediment, dress billowing around her hips and a vision slammed into her like a physical bow to the gut. Robbing her of breath and sending her tumbling to her knees rough stone biting deeply into flesh. She barely felt the telltale burn of broken skin as a golden hue rose, burning and swirling in glittering ribbons, beneath her flesh. She had no time for self pity, as her heed snapped back to face the sky. Eyes snapping wide, irises flashing with the colors of a midnight sky; twinkling pin pricks of silver and gold flashing in a vast sea of velvety black as she fell into the abyss. Reality disappearing, until her eyelids finally fell closed. 

When they opened again, she was confronted with her own reflection in perfect, curved, crystalline glass. Only the woman that stared back at her was not the woman she had gazed upon all her many lifetimes. Gone was the fair skin, the dusting of freckles across her cheeks, black eyes, and the silver platinum strands of her hair. In its place was golden fire. Her curls were now whips of golden embers and silver smoke, her flesh was a shimmering mass of swirling prismatic glitter, her features were barely discernible with the exception of the delicate bridge of her nose, the heavy line of her brow, the point of her chin, and the brilliant glow of pink, gold, and silver resonating from where her eyes should have been. 

She lifted a hand and watched in open mouthed horror as the long digits began to diffuse. Morphing from a gassy mist of burnished gold to dripping sands. Quickly they fell and with morbid eyes she watched as they grains gave way to gravity and fell to the glass floor beneath her floating feet. Overhead a shower began to fall whipping around what was once her body in a funnel cloud of sand. Faster and faster it spun until finally the glass of her prison disappeared from view. Then came the voices, loud and booming, like the echos of thunder over the ocean. She strained her ears, trying to hear the words over the scream of the winds. Under the assault of dust, sand and wind her burning eyes finally closed; and the voices descended. 

_"Thanos. He's a plague, Tony. He invades planets, he takes what he wants, he _wipes out_  half the population. He sent Loki! The attack on New York, that's him!"_

_"We're in the end game now."_

_"He's here."_

_"You have the power to destroy the stone."_

_"You must do it, we are out of time."_

_"I can't."_

_"I told you, you'd die for that."_

_"You should have gone for the head."_

_"Did you do it?"_

_"Yes,"_

_"What did it cost?"_

_"Everything."_

_"Tony, there was no other way."_

_"Hourglass."_

_"You said she was a legend."_

_"So was Asgard."_

_"Her name is Aurelia Seville."_

_"And she, is our only hope."_

Her eyes opened, the heavy curtains of sand had tightened into the perfect spiral of a cyclone. The gilt grains flashing and flickering until a picture began to form. Like a television with poor reception and no vertical hold, the image bounced and rolled; before she was surrounded with the endless black of space. Almost as if she was cast adrift she bobbed in silence, for what seemed like eons. Until a voice began to murmur in her ear. It was deep and rumbling, like the roar of a lion and it made the gassy baby fine hairs at her nape tingle and stand on end. 

 _"Space,"_ a flash of blue flashed before her eyes, back-dropped against shimmering stars and the light blues and gassy golds of the Milky Way. 

 _"Mind,"_ The familiar face of the purple android Avenger materialized in the storm, and on his brow a yellow gem sparked. 

 _"Reality,"_ Then the small form of a woman, dressed in flowing fabrics suspended in a ominous haze of red and black. 

 _"Power,"_ A cluster of beings, a man in a red duster, an emerald skinned woman, a gray giant with red tattoos etched upon his skin, and a raccoon bathed in a sea of purple. Their face twisted in agony and mouths dropped open in silent screams. 

 _"Time,"_ A golden eye flashed open, revealing an iris of glowing a radioactive green. 

 _"Soul,"_ A skeletal red face gazed back into her with hollow deeply set eyes. 

_"With all six stones, I can simply snap my fingers, they would all cease to exist. I call that mercy.”  
_

She watched, powerless and silent a gold gauntlet lifted, and he snapped his fingers. A fire seemed to ignite in her core, burning outward from her gut threw her veins, along every muscle and limb, and into her fingertips. The pain was unlike anything she had ever before felt. This was not the deep throb of a wound earned in battle, not the sharp jab of a broken limb; but something wholly unto itself. This was pain on a molecular level, every atom, and synapse was licked in flame. Her head tipped back and finally her mouth dropped open.  

The scream that followed was soul wrenching and it took time to realize, that the sound that echoed through her mind, was her own. Aurelia was nothing more than molten flame, her body dissolving, joining the swirling sands inside the hourglass. The grains of sand flickering like a light bulb, before taking on the same glow that over took her eyes. Faces flickered before her eyes. Familiar faces. Faces that had haunted her visions since childhood. 

_"They come."_

_"The balance..."_

" _Restore."_

_"The...balance."_

_"A sword, for a shield."_  

 

Then Aurelia was back, kneeling in the pool, knees burning and the birds chirping overhead. Black eyes looked up fixing on the horizon, just as the sun burst forth. The dawn of a new day. Aurelia's smile was cold as she got to her feet, her the battered flesh of her knees red and bruised twinging, and pulling, painfully; and she jutted her chin up in stubborn determination. 

"Let him come." 

* * *

 

 

Darcy Lewis liked to think of herself as her Pop-Pops favorite Timex watch; she could take a hell of a licking and keep on ticking. Pop-pop had certainly put that old watch through the metaphoric wringer, accident prone as he was. That old watch had survived a drunk driving priest, tumbles down the stairs, broken bones and concussions and being mowed over by a trolley car. Still like Pop-pop that watch kept on ticking. As a young girl, Darcy was of the opinion that both her grandfather, and his beloved watch, were indestructible. It was the notion of a young girl of nine still so blissfully naive and untainted by cynicism that she had still looked out at the world with rose colored glasses. Still so naively sure that out there somewhere was a prince with a glass slipper and a fairy godmother lurking just out of sight ready to send a deserving young girl off to a ball in a pumpkin coach.

  
Then came the prostate cancer and the end of that childish dream. Nearly two years later, only a month before her eleventh birthday, that strong Poland born man that had survived the Nazi occupation of Kraków and a work camp and any number of mishaps over the years was gone. As a reminder Darcy had kept that battered old watch, with the cracked and scuffed face and the tattered leather band, tucked safely away in her jewelry box.

  
Two years later, puberty hit hard. It had been a normal Saturday, when Darcy’s world once again turned on its axis. She had only just returned from the local library and had decided to make herself a snack. Her mother was sitting in the breakfast nook grading papers when the toaster exploded in a shower of sparks and smoke. Flickering between Darcy’s fingers in fine gossamer strands of silver and blue was tiny bolts of electricity. Her mother screamed her name. Throwing herself out of her chair, in a desperate attempt to get to her daughter. Like any other girl her age when confronted with a difficult situation, Darcy flipped her shit and those tiny bolts exploded into a storm. Her mom had no choice but to dive beneath the kitchen table as the light above her exploded spewing golden sparks like rain.

  
Darcy’s scream was not one of pain, but of unbridled terror. The current danced along her limbs, tickling along her nerves like tiny carbonated bubbles, and bursting out like crackling ribbons of destruction. The door to the refrigerator was blown off its hinges when the appliance seemed to collapse in on its self. Cans of soda burst under the current in a merry fountain of foam. Jugs of milk, lemonade, and orange juice broke sending forth a flood, that cascaded down over the crisper drawers like a waterfall and pooling on the floor. The glass of the coffee pot detonated in a shower of glittering shrapnel, biting at her exposed skin.

  
The storm seemed to rage on for hours; but when the dust settled Darcy, had laid waste to the majority of the kitchen and set the dinning table on fire. The ceiling fan over the island and the small lantern chandelier over the table, were smoking and spouting a cascade of glittering sparks. The stainless steel faucet had been blown to pieces and a geyser of water arched from the broken line. The celling, which had once been a light creamy yellow was now pocked and streaked with thick gouges and stained black. Her mother was still tucked beneath the burning table. The papers she was grading were now nothing more than fuel to dancing orange flames.

  
The only thing left untouched in the chaos was the smoke detector as it wailed, echoing over the pounding in Darcy’s ears. Crumpled on the cold hardwood floor, physically exhausted she could only gape in horror at the destruction, shards of ceramic crunching beneath her weight and nipping at her flesh. Darcy’s body shook with violent tremors, as her breath came hard and fast. Her face began to tingle, and with a whimper she curled in on herself petrified that she was about to erupt again. Her mother crawled forward, uncaring of the minefield laid before her, brown eyes shinning with unshed tears, as she called her name. Her silver streaked jet black hair a mess of frizz and thin shallow cuts across her cheek. Darcy cried out for her to stay back and scrambled away on her bottom, her hands raised to ward her mother off.

  
Until she realized she basically holding a weapon of mass destruction, on her mom. If Darcy hadn’t been hyperventilating she would have tormented her already raw throat with another wrenching scream. Instead she whimpered pitifully, curled her hands into tight fists and pressed them into her stomach, as she continued her retreat.  
Addie Lewis, however was not deterred, as she continued to crawl forward on her hands and knees; as she tried to sooth her daughter with words of comfort. Darcy, however wasn’t listening, she continued to scrambled clumsily backward while protecting her hands, her pulse thumping in her ears. Her back hit the wall, trapping her, with no place to go she hunched in on herself bringing her legs up she sandwiched her fists between her thighs and stomach. Her mom stopped at her feet, reaching out a comforting hand but stopped just shy of touching her daughter when she gave a hiccuping sob.

  
Tears falling from her lashes, Addie Lewis refused to leave her daughter without a mother’s comfort when she was in such a state. No matter the danger, she refused to retreat. She had been then where her girl had skinned her knees, and broke her arm falling from the tree house; she damn well wasn’t going to leave her when Darcy needed her the most. The threat of electrocution, mattered little when her baby was in such pain.

  
A small strong hand clasped firmly on Darcy’s knee. Darcy flailed her legs and tried to jerk free. Without even a flicker of a glance at her daughter’s hands she dove forward and pulled Darcy into a rough hug, smoothing a hand over her matted curls and began to hum a familiar melody. It was a tune that had soothed Darcy as a girl: during teething, when there were monsters in the closet, during her painful bouts of strep throat. The familiar bars of Elvis Presley’s ‘Moody Blue’ would always soothe Addie’s savage toddler. But when she needed the serenity the unconventional lullaby failed Darcy.

  
Darcy tried to fight her mother, terrified of causing more destruction, but as a former champion gymnast her mother might have been slight in stature but she made up for it with freakish strength, and she held tight. Soon enough Darcy admitted defeat and succumbed to the shuddering sobs, that clogged her throat, but stubbornly refusing to return the embrace. How long Darcy sat there sobbing, she didn’t know. All she knew that by the time she sat on the edge of her parents bed, with her mother applying Steri-Strips to the worst of her cuts, that the sun was beginning to set.

  
Despite the damage her parents never once looked at her with fear. Only sorrow, as Darcy retreated, refusing to touch or be touched. By the time Professor X and Scott Summers arrived at their door a week later, Darcy had killed her alarm clock, the television, and her stereo, before she set her bed on fire during a nightmare.  
Her mom refused to allow her near water, terrified she would electrocute herself and had insisted on quick washes at the bathroom sink, and even then she hovered outside the door until Darcy safely emerged. Downcast and embarrassed, but in one piece. Electronics had been removed from her room and her father had spent the better part of Sunday disassembling her metal framed bed, and erecting a new one of safe solid oak. While mom had removed all her clothing with zippers or metal buttons and hooks from her dresser and replacing them with sweats, elastic sports bras, and items with wooden or plastic buttons. Outside her window the low buzzing whine of a table saw and the dull pound of hammers echoed, as Uncle Mark replaced their iron banisters and chain-link fence with thick glossy, non-conductive, cherry wood. Aunt Georgia was down stairs in what remained of the kitchen, (browbeating) conferring with the re-modelers. Darcy sat alone on her window seat head tilted against the cool glass, somberly watching the weaving bolts dancing from her fingertips.

  
In a desperate effort to curb her powers, before she burned the house to the ground, she swiped a pair of the yellow rubber gloves, her father used to wash dishes. Darcy may have barely scraped by with a D- in science, but she did know that rubber didn’t conduct electricity. Whether it was coincidence or not, the explosions of electronics ceased. For the time being. It was certainly not a permeant solution. Come September she would be back to her small Catholic school with a very strict dress code and thick rubber gloves, that protected against dish pan hands, was not going to make the cut.

  
Professors Xavier and Mr. Summers arrived early the following Saturday. The meeting had been a strange one. After all it wasn’t everyday Darcy met a telepath and a dude who could shoot laser beams out of his eyeballs. It tended to leave an impression. Her parents, had been reluctant. Living in South Jersey a school in upstate New York seemed so far away. But they were out of options.

  
They had no way of helping Darcy, beyond pulling her out of St. Lawrence’s and home schooling her and the small steps they had already taken. They had no way of helping Darcy control her powers. Addie and Harrison Lewis cared little for the blowhards on Capital Hill or their politics and paid little if any attention. As a result they had remained blissfully oblivious to the existence of the X-Gene as well as the particulars, until their only child had nearly laid waste to the kitchen.

  
So the following Tuesday, Darcy stood on the gravel drive of the stately manor that housed Xavier’s Institute. With lush rolling lawns, expansive grounds, and tall towering trees it offered a silent guarantee of privacy. Something Darcy thought confirmed, when a boy a few years older than herself flew past them, doing lazy somersaults overhead; with an exasperated man in a suit, with bright blue fur in hot pursuit. The older gentleman skidded to a stop before the blinking Lewis family.  
He grinned, offering a hand to Darcy’s parents. “Ah, you must be the Lewis family. Charles, has told me all about you.”

  
Darcy had dropped her eyes to the gravel, idly nudging a gray rock with the toe of her boot. A quite clearing of a throat, made Darcy peak up from beneath her bangs.  
The man, who would introduce himself as Dr. Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast, smiled his dark eyes warm and understanding, and crinkling in the corners.

  
“Never fear, Miss. Lewis. You will face no judgement here. Now, if you will excuse me I must catch Mr. Fergus and return him to class. Edwin, you get back here you little scamp!” With a final nod and smile; Beast resumed his chase.

  
Soon after Xavier’s began to feel like the sanctuary she was promised. Darcy learned to control her powers, had made a few amazing friends- who were just as blissfully weird as her- and most of all she had learned to be herself again. The summer following her first year, her parents had left their lives in New Jersey and moved to the next county, so unlike so many of her fellow students Darcy had been able to go home over break.

  
Darcy knew how damn lucky she was. So many of her friends had stories like Bobby and Rogue. One with parents who could never accept their child was different, and one who was too terrified to find out. The Lewis house had become a bit of a camp. With friends and faculty trooping in and out during the weeks of Summer. Addie had been only too happy to have a full house. Even if her guests had a habit of merging through the kitchen wall instead of using the door. Mornings were spent in pajamas binging on popcorn and cookies as they worked their way through Darcy’s vast DVD collection, afternoons dedicated to sunbathing or splashing around in the in ground pool and impromptu trips to the shore, and nights spent roasting marshmallows in the fire pit and laying in hammocks under the stars.  
A truly normal summer and Addie and Derek Lewis took pride in it. Professor Xavier had been only to happy to see his students experience true acceptance outside the walls of the Institute and he and the other professors had been regulars at the weekly Sunday barbeques.

  
Darcy loved it as much as her fellow students. At times she wondered if her parents had powers of their own, as they seemed to put even the most reluctant (Rogue) and prickly (Logan) at ease. Darcy never thought she’d see the day that the gruff Wolverine would laugh at one of her dad’s lousy jokes. Those barbeques would last long after Darcy left Xavier’s.

  
Two years later, in late September; she met Maverick ‘Mavi’ Bishop, a teenage girl from Philadelphia who could manipulate air currents, who would become her closest friend and confidant. At sixteen she had been considered a late bloomer, as most-like Darcy- presented in early puberty. They had become room mates after Ivy had left for college. Mavi was an awkward girl, short and overweight, with dark wavy hair and freckles. Who had a tendency to toss or pin people to walls with her aerokinesis, when startled. It had happened to Darcy more than once, and by the time her roommate had adapted to her presence, she had been very well acquainted with the celling. They eventually bonded over their similar backgrounds. Most importantly they shared a deep bond with their grandfathers and had only been a year apart in age when they lost them.  
After that they found a shared love of Bruce Willis movies, history, and Jane Austen novels. Before lights out Darcy would teach her to crochet, while Mavi taught her how to curse in Polish and throw a wicked right hook. It had been the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  
Mavi had been the first one to call her ‘Shockwave’ when during self-defense class, Darcy had sent Logan flying with a pure wave of electricity. It had been more than a little funny when Logan pulled himself from the trunk of a (destroyed) oak tree, his hair (even his mutton chops) standing on end. Making him look very much like a bamboozled poodle with a charred cigar stub, that now resembled a banana peel, still clenched between his teeth. The nickname stuck. Soon even the Professor called her by it whenever he was exasperated with her (which was often).  
  
Because one good turn deserved another, Darcy had been determined to bestow her friend with an equally kickass code name. Not so easy a task, as Darcy found out. It wasn’t until she found her friend by the archery field making small wind storm in the palm of her hand, with twigs, flower petals, and blades of grass dancing on the violent winds; that Tempest sprang to mind.

  
Her years at Xavier’s were probably some of the happiest of her childhood. That didn’t mean it was easy. Far from it. Discipline was not learned in a day. Some days Darcy still felt like that helpless thirteen year old. Struggling in vain to control something that by nature irrepressible. In times like that she would open her jewelry box.  
It worked every time. Sometimes she would delve into that box in search of a pair of earrings she would find the watch, pillowed on cushion of green velvet with light winking of its chipped crystal, and remember.

Strength.

Be 'Strong like bull and stubborn as mule' as her Pop-pop would say. A motto that had gotten him through years of hardship and strife. Grandma had once explained it to Darcy, when she was a pudgy seven year old with tear stained cheeks from the cruel words of the bullies on the playground: "Us Polocks we’re of hearty stock and stubborn souls, darling; with God in our hearts, and thickly callused palms that are helping and gentle in times of peace and savage in times of war. In other words, duckling…we are survivors."

  
Darcy had always been proud to come from a family so undaunted by hard work, with clenched jaws and jutted chins at the first sign of adversity. If her Pop-pop could survive and endure throughout the Nazi regime, Darcy too could face anything else life had to throw her way (as it turned out that would be an alien searching for-and to be worthy of-a hammer, of all things, and a giant evil fire breathing robot of doom; but all things being equal she would take evil transformers and adopted brothers with severe daddy issues over Nazis). It wouldn't be easy and it certainly wouldn't be a rainbow bridge full of cuddly puppies, but she too was "Strong like bull, and stubborn as mule', and at any time that belief began to falter all she had to do was search the depths of her jewelry box for that watch, battle scared and frayed with age, that still ticked on. (It was that silent reminder that had given her the courage to leave the safety of the Institute. Professor X reassured her that she had a strong enough grasp to brave the hollowed halls of higher education. There Darcy promised herself she wouldn’t use her powers, she refused to take the risk. If she ever lost control there were people at the Institute who could stop her. That wouldn’t be the case at Culver.)

Ironically enough it was one such excursion into the depths of her jewelry box, in search of her lucky cupcake earrings, when she had gazed upon that watch and decided to take a risk. That chance had lead her away from the safe, boring, and completely pointless internship with a disgraced Senator trying desperately to keep his seat in the upcoming election. Darcy had scoffed at the idea, no one wanted to vote for a man who liked to post dick pics on social media, but it was the only internship left vacant in her field of study and so she took a chance on a batty astrophysicist in the middle of the New Mexican desert.  
After all what was the worst that could happen?

As it turned out?

 _A fucking lot_.

A cyclone of dust in the middle of the damn desert, an alien/really cut homeless guy falling ass first from the sky ( and what a fine ass it was) Jane hitting him with the car. Her tasing him (and pouring in a little of her own juice for good measure, hey he really freaked her the fuck out!). His misplaced hammer of mass destruction that brought in a slew of MIB wannabes, (those jackbooted thugs stealing Mustang Sally, her freaking iPod for Christ sake! She and her poor beleaguered Sally had been through so much together, they were musical soul mates, two halves of the same whole! To make it worse none of them understood the dozens of Will Smith references she baited them with, seriously what uncultured heathens didn't love the Fresh Prince?) who stormed in and stole Jane's life work in the name of national security. Add in an evil fire breathing Transformer, a dash of alien despot, with middle child syndrome, on a power trip and a pinch of a broken rainbow bridge and a heaping of heartbroken boss, shake and serve over ice and you had one gigantic clusterfuck.

  
That was apparently the worst that could happen.

By then, Darcy should have learned not to tempt fate; but she had stupidly believed that her weird meter had already passed the red. What else could possibly happen?

She would later regret even thinking that question.

Darcy had fully assumed she would complete her internship, and happily take her science credits and hightail it out of butt-fuck New Mexico, for Culver. Where she would finish off her double major (history and political science) and hopefully return to Xavier’s as a faculty and X-Men member. It had been a dream of her since she was fifteen, with a mug of coca in hand and curled up on the common room sofa, listening to Rogue recount her encounter with Magneto. Darcy wanted nothing more than to truly make a difference and to do that Darcy assumed that path led back to upstate New York.

  
Until she met Dr. Jane Foster. The brilliantly bonkers astrophysicist, who disregarded personnel well being in pursuit of Science. When Darcy had arrived for her internship, Jane had looked like a stiff breeze would blow her into the next county. She was practically swimming in a faded flannel shirt and scuffed jeans that were more holes than denim. It was a damn good thing, that Mama Lewis had made sure her daughter knew the ins and outs of the culinary arts, because Jane needed more than a few good meals. In between mowing down aliens and throwing stationary at jackbooted thugs, and crafting the perfect mushroom lasagna, Darcy had carved out a place for herself that was just hers.

  
A place she had, for once, willingly chosen. As much as Darcy loved her years at Xavier’s, it had been forced upon her by circumstances. She had never asked for her DNA to mutate or to be able to knock out the power grid of a small city when she had a cold. That had been the hand dealt to her and if Remy taught her one thing it was how to play those card to the best of her ability. Jane and Eric however, they offered up a, twisted, normalcy that had always seemed so far out of her reach.  
Taking that step however, had been much like embracing her powers. It felt so alien at first, that Darcy questioned if she was making the right choice. A call to Professor Xavier had quickly laid that fear to rest.

  
_“Shockwave,”_ Charles Xavier’s voice had been soft over the line, and even from the other side of the country Darcy could tell he was wearing that soft crooked smile that always soothed her.

  
_“We all have a path. Yes, it might not be the one you expected, it seldom is my dear, and just because you turn down a dirt road doesn’t mean you’ll never again find the highway. You will always find your way home. But first, you must determine just where that home is.”_

  
Standing in the middle of the desert, far from prying eyes (and ears) and nosey scientists, tears fell from Darcy’s eyes.

  
“And how will I know?” her voice cracked, and she held a hand up to shield her eyes from the glaring sun.

His sigh was soft, and fond. _“When you find it dear, you won’t have to ask.”_

  
Darcy sniffed, and wiped her eyes with the cuff of her purple and green plaid shirt. “Can I still drop by for Thanksgiving dinner?”

The Professor laughed, a deep genuine laugh and Darcy couldn’t help but grin. _“I shall leave the light on for you. But truly, I do not believe the road shall lead you to far from us.”_

  
“I thought you were only a telepath, don’t tell you’ve been holding out on me.” she teasingly accused. 

  
He snorted loudly. _“Only a telepath am I? It would do you well to remember, who it was that had Logan skipping through the gardens picking daisies. If I recall, he did looking very fetching in his fairy crown.”_

  
The explosion of laughter that followed, was deep and soothing to Darcy’s frazzled nerves. She remembered that day well, Logan had pushed the affable Charles to far. No one ever knew what he had done, only that Logan had come skipping out of the mansion with bows in his hair and in desperate search of flowers to build his crown. He even giggled, when he caught sight of Darcy, gave a wiggle of his fingers in greeting and had pranced off humming to himself. It had been as disturbing as it was hysterical.  
“Call it a hunch.” He said, when her laughter became snickers.

  
So Darcy turned down that dirt road, confident it would one day lead her back to upstate New York, and a manor house full of loveable mutants.

  
In the six months that followed Thor's return over the rainbow, Darcy had become a jack of all trades. Starting with a cheerleader, a shoulder to cry on, chef, a glorified babysitter, and grunt running constantly from dawn till dusk. Collating endless reams of data, before scanning it onto the laptop, backing up the files to two different external hard drives, and sending a watered down (useless) memo of Jane's progress and findings to SHIELD. That wasn't even counting the biweekly trips she took to the all night grocery in the next town (as Mega-Tron had laid waste to Salty's Pantry) to stock up on Jane's essential breakfast pastry, and other odds and ends to keep them all alive for the next alien invasion(hopefully that 'invasion' would involve Jane's lady parts and Thor-seriously Darcy couldn't take much more! The constant moping and science comas were threatening to send Darcy to a padded room years before her time).  
  
Jane found out she was a mutant after the Battle of New York. Despite all her years of training and focus, accidents still happened. (Thor returned, Loki and aliens invaded and nearly leveled New York, and Iron Man rode a nuke into outer space, they were shipped back from Norway back to butt-fuck New Mexico; it had been a bad fucking few days and Darcy had reached her God damned limit!) Darcy had remembered the sinking feeling in her gut as Jane looked from the smoking remains of her laptop to her. Except, to her surprise Jane hadn’t been scared or even cautious. If there was one thing Jane didn’t posses it was the instinct of self-preservation. In fact she said nothing as she quickly ducked into the kitchenette and returned with the toaster, plugging it in and given her an expectant look and demanded; “Again!”

  
It had been vaguely frightening by how enthused (if a little hurt that her science gremlin hadn’t trusted her with the secret), Jane had been with the discovery of her powers. She also got that manic gleam in her eye, when she killed the toaster. Jane gave a very Joker like smile as she gazed at the appliance now collapsed in on itself and smoking sadly. Going on about power sources and “this is fantastic Darcy! How much voltage can you put out? How does it work, are you creating it or are you manipulating atmospheric electricity?”

Darcy had been more preoccupied with learning to control her mutation, so she didn’t fry unsuspecting squishy humans, than with the scientific specifics. Now between star gazing Darcy found herself in the middle of the desert shedding her plucky intern cap, for the old comfortable sweater that was Shockwave. Jane had been a benevolent task master, bribing her favorite (only) minion with candy bars, as she set up newly built monsters to read the output. Brown eyes glinting in the silver glow of electricity.

  
It was around that time Jane had gone full on Mama bear, when ever SHIELD came to call. On those days Darcy was banished to do the food shopping or to scour a junk yard for parts they didn’t really need. The only contact Darcy was allowed with Big Brother was in written form. When Darcy had questioned her, Jane got the same fierce look she only ever got when talking about black holes.

  
“This is _SHIELD_ Darcy. They hide behind terms like National Security or Patriot Act. They fear things and people they can’t control. And if they can’t control it, they fucking eliminate it. And you, Shockwave…they can’t even fucking hope to control.”

  
The Jane sniffed, taking a vicious bit out of her pepper ham on rye with Swiss. “So, there just not going to get the chance. Charles and the X-men would burn SHIELD to the ground and salt their fields, to protect one of theirs and I would damn well be carrying the fucking matches. Because minion, whether you like it or not your mine. And I _don’t_ share.”

That Thanksgiving, Jane had a seat of honor between the Professor and Dr. Hank McCoy and spent the evening talking about the specifics of Darcy’s mutation and exchanging research notes. Even Jean had been sucked into Jane’s Science!Vacuum at one point, with Scott hovering at her shoulder grinning indulgently. Darcy had just been happy that Science! hadn’t prevented Jane from eating her bodyweight in Remy’s Cajun seafood stuffing. Their week stay had been one to remember when Cyclops had taken one look at tiny, delicate Jane and promptly dragged her off to the range in the basement.

  
Jane had been reluctant, but when the Professor had agreed that with her research being of value to more than just SHIELD and that Darcy should be her first line of defense not her only, Jane allowed Scott, Cyclops, and Storm to put her through her paces. Logan had been quickly banished, with a boot to the balls and a cyclone tossing him through the wall, when he patted Jane on the ass and called her Sweetheart. Thor would be very proud of his lady love. Mostly because he missed out on the whining that followed. A sore and tired Jane was a bitchy Jane. It was a good thing Darcy had retained some muscle when she had been forced to cart Jane down to breakfast in a fireman’s carry the following day.

By the time they left, Jane happily accepting Scott’s offer to fly them to London in the Blackbird, Darcy had been content especially as she did not have to brave the groping hands of TSA and the sardine can that was coach. Darcy later came to regret not flying commercial, when Scott had turned the controls over to Jane. Her screams had been long, loud, and continuous, as they barrel-rolled high above the Atlantic. Jane's own cry's, unlike those of her intern, were whoops of joy and Scott-the rat bastard- had been much the same (except he had thrown his hands up in the air as if he was on a roller coaster, cheering on his pupil). When they landed, Darcy had stumbled out green faced and wobbly; and lost her lunch all over the shoes of the attendant that was awaiting their arrival at the privet airstrip. Posh, older, and stonily British the man had gazed down at his once polished shoes and up to the still woozy intern and gave a haughty sniff and stuck his nose in the air, dismissing her as an uncouth American.

Under normal circumstance he would have seen, just how uncouth a South Jersey girl could be, but she was still barely able to keep vertical and she wasn't willing to risk toppling over her own feet like a drunk socialite on day three of a bender. The leisure ride into Greenwich had been just what the doctor ordered, and by the time they stepped out in front of Jane's mom's apparent building, Darcy was able to glorify in childhood dream of being an American in London. She should have known it wouldn’t last long. Freaky shit was never far from Jane’s door. (Seriously, sometimes Darcy wondered if Jane had her own mutation that summoned forth the crazies.) 

  
Then things went from freaky to totally fucked up: Jane disappeared and met the Aether, then reappeared, almost got arrested, Thor returned cape all a fluttering and still deliciously cut, Jane was whisked off via rainbow bridge after she released a shockwave of her own (leaving Darcy to deal with the seriously peeved Bobby's of Scotland Yard, because of-fucking-course), Jane got called a goat by a one-eyed-bag of dicks (King or not, no one called her Janey a goat!), Thor committed treason with his friends (because really what are friends for?), Loki got offed (boo-fucking-hoo), she sprung Eric from prison, forced a man over thirty years her senior into a pair of running shorts, (because apparently long pants interfered with his creative process, but as long as Darcy wasn't accosted by saggy ball sack when ever she turned around she didn't give a damn if he wore at tutu and called himself the Sugar Plum Fairy.), tried to call SHIELD (and never even got a call back, seriously what was the point of having an emergency line if no fucking answered it?!), the X-Men were dealing with Magneto’s latest scheme in Greece and were incommunicado, then Jane returned with news of the pending arrival of a Machiavellian elf bent on creating eternal darkness ( as souvenirs went, Darcy would have settled for a damn t-shirt or bilgesnipe bobble head).

Then came the Convergence and fucking elves! And not the stunning Orlando Bloom type of elves that glittered in the moonlight, and made Darcy’s undies pack up and head for drier climates. But ugly snarling, gray fuckers in armor that looked like it had been stolen from _Jiffy Lube_. Darcy spent the better part of her day running through the streets of Greenwich, driving magic portal spikes into the ground, and dodging elves. Caught alone, she had been forced to take down a few of the shits herself, and God did it feel good to watch those creepy fuckers twitch!

  
Not soon enough, Malekith was defeated, Jane and Thor were nearly crushed beneath a space ship, and her intern was following her around like a mooning puppy. That conversation had not been fun to have, and Darcy was forced to send him packing (after SHIELD hit him with half a dozen NDA forums and orders to never to try to contact Dr. Foster or her staff again, or risk a stay in one of GITMO's deepest holes.). Darcy Lewis didn’t do clingy boyfriends, especially when she had genius cats to herd and a Viking alien of Asgard to acclimate to Midgardian culture. Like on earth, people wore pants. (Or kilts and tutu's) Because it was only polite to acknowledge that everyone had the inalienable right not to see someone’s junk swinging in the breeze (no matter how pretty the package.).

  
Eric discovered her abilities two days later when Jane had held out a gizmo, that was made out of an old rotary phone and clock parts, and demanded a charge. Exhausted beyond reason Darcy had simply taken it; hands glowing a silver white. Selvig, bless him, had simply shrugged when all had been explained, saying: “I ran naked through Stonehenge. I have no room to judge.” Thor had been all grins, declaring her a worthy protector for his Lady and a giddiness at their shared skills with lightening; before hoping the rainbow bridge back to Asgard. (With the promise of bringing her back a gift that didn’t involve global extinction.) After Thor returned the long invasion of Jane’s lady parts began in earnest.

  
Then SHIELD fucking fell in fantastically dramatic form, with three flying battleships crashing into the Potomac and a massive data dump onto the internet Edward Snowden style. Apparently Captain America and Black Widow didn’t do anything by halves. Not that it really effected them too much (SHYDRA had very little of worth concerning Jane’s research); except for SI issued security and Thor hauling ass to New York to visit his injured comrades. He made it up to Jane with a romantic trip to Venice, before he was called off to go Avenging and Jane dragged Darcy off to New Zealand for some astronomical anomaly.

 

Sokovia fell (literally) on a Wednesday.

  
And only after Tony Stark had unleashed Skynet upon the world and then built a new fucking superhero. Freshly returned from Heathrow the day before, Darcy had jumped off the battered sofa and jabbed a finger at the television; that was showing footage of a flying city and an army of robots.

  
“ _See_ Jane! _This_ is what happens when geniuses are left to play together unsupervised!”

Jane sniffed, not pulling her eyes from the screen, and swatted away her declaration. “Only if your Tony Stark. A giant monument to his dick in Manhattan wasn’t enough of an ego boost, so he built himself a flying purple dildo. I am _not_ , Tony Stark.”

  
Jane then pulled her eyes away, after Thor’s handsome mug and dramatically fluttering cape was replaced by some BBC analyst wearing to much makeup, and narrowed her brown eyes at her friend, and pointing a half eaten corn-dog at Darcy, to emphasize her point. “I am Jane Fucking Foster, I can save the universe from eternal darkness with a trip to Home Depot. Tony Stark, only _wishes_ he was me.”

  
Darcy had been forced to concede. Jane had the brains and talent to build anything that danced across her brilliant little mind, but she only did so for the advancement of Science!. Sure, there had been that one time, in New Mexico that Jane had drawn up schematics for her own Destroyer but that had been for the express purpose of raining fiery vengeance upon the Triskelion. But that was only after Sitwell had been assigned as their liaison, after he had questioned the good doctor’s intelligence for keeping on a _political_ science intern and sending back the qualified SHIELD approved assistants with a pointed note of “Fuck Off, you clandestine dickbags,” scrawled on the back panel of a PopTart box. No one, _no one_ , questioned or disturbed Jane’s process (and Darcy had become an integral part of her process); without paying dearly for it. While Darcy had put the kibosh on that particular plot, as she had never been too keen to visit GITMO. She had enthusiastically helped her max out the SHIELD credit card on BDSM apparel and shipped it to SHIELD headquarters, in the name of Nicholas J. Fury. The card had been a D. Lewis creation with a muscular man in leather and chaps holding a whip, with a certain agent’s face expertly photoshopped on, and signed with love from J. Sitwell; tucked neatly atop a pair of ass-less leather chaps.

  
Crying “Uncle”, Fury had reassigned Agent Hill as their liaison and Fury left them an expletive filled voice mail threatening vengeance if they ever stepped foot in D.C.(Darcy liked Agent Hill, she didn’t give a damn what they did, so long as they didn’t blow up The Land of Enchantment while doing it.) Two days later a gift basket of mini-cupcakes and two bags of heavenly Saint Helena coffee beans arrived with a thank you card signed C. Barton and a tiny bow doodled beneath. Apparently even Sitwell’s own colleagues enjoyed his humiliation. Darcy very much approved.

  
The first abduction attempt came on the Friday following Sokovia. Darcy had finally managed to coax Jane out of the apartment with the promise of homemade peach muffins; if she spent an hour in the park on a rare sunny London day. Darcy had been enjoying the sudden influx of vitamin D as they walked the few blocks to Regents Park, when an unmarked panelvan screeched to a stop at the curb.

  
While Darcy had little experience in the art of abduction, she figured the three ski masked assholes that jumped out, should have at least posed a challenge. In the end Jane had laid one flat on his back, after flipping him easily over one dainty shoulder before adding on final insult to injury by zapping him with Darcy’s old Taser (that she no longer needed to pretend she needed). While Darcy had easily dispatched his two friends without having to expose her powers. (The getaway drive choose to cut his loses and get while the getting was good, and had taken off like a bat out of hell when Darcy was crushing Thing 2's balls beneath her boot.) When the police arrived on the scene, three men were on the sidewalk, moaning, twitching, and laying in a puddle of piss and drool (courtesy of furious astrophysicist, who really loved her new Taser). 

  
Jane had perched herself on a nearby sun drenched bench (in keeping with their agreement) and was nibbling at a macaroon from the patisserie down the block, while scribbling equations on her napkin. She looked up, shoved the remains of her treat in her mouth, chewed and swallowed before she gave the officers a welcoming smile and shrugged when she followed their gaze to the tangled heap of men, before offering up an explanation.

  
“They wanted my research. I’m not very good at sharing.”

  
With that she went back to her scribbling, and blindly held her hand out for another meringue-based confection. Darcy rolled her eyes and dropped a lavender flavored treat in her palm. Jane grunted her thanks, and fell back down the rabbit hole. Leaving Darcy to deal with the frustrated policeman, again. They paid their fine, for carrying and using a illegal Taser, (which was confiscated, a new and improved model arriving by overnight post the next morning from Hill) with their new SI card. Before buying a nice bottle of champagne and toasting their badassness over shrimp friend rice.

The end for Jane and Thor came on a Saturday. He was off to hunt Infinity Stones across the Nine Realms, and Jane was done fucking waiting. (Despite Jane’s addiction to work, her biological clock had started ticking, hard. She had wanted the whole wedding and baby thing with Thor, but before she could bring it up he had sprung his galaxy hoping getaway on her. _Yeah_ , it went just as badly as it sounded.) After that things had fallen into a pattern, Jane threw herself into her research and lecture tour, that took them from Hawaii’s sun drenched beaches to snowy Anchorage, Alaska (in the dead of fucking _winter_ , Janie!).

  
Their return to Xavier’s was supposed to be a long overdue vacation. Where Darcy could see her parents outside of a Skype call and Jane could rub minds with Eric (who had joined them for the trip) and the Doctors Three. She had been looking forward to not living out of a suitcase for a few weeks. Darcy just wanted to be in one place for more than a weekend and relax her jetlagged body. She never would have thought the glamour of jet-setting was such a fucking pain. Half the time in the last year and a half, Darcy didn’t even know what time zone she was in. She never would have thought it a blessing to be laid over in a cramped hotel room in New Delhi with Darth Jane, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  
Darcy had been looking forward to the pillow topped mattresses that awaited her in the guest wing of the Institute. Of catching up with Mavi, Kitty, and even fucking Logan and eating her weight in decent pizza. That all dissolved before her very eyes when Iron Man disappeared in an alien spacecraft, a frazzled Pepper Potts arrived at their door demanding to see the Professor, and Kitty Pride and Jean Grey crumbled into ashes before her eyes.

  
Screams echoed through the halls of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters as friends watched friends dissolve. Left alone in the kitchen with a pile of dust, that had once been a friend and a mentor, Darcy swallowed back her panic and bolted into the hall. She had to dive out of the way, or risk being upended, as Rogue went past screaming for Bobby and Logan.

  
Catching her balance against the wall, she propelled herself forward. Dodging terrified students and piles of ashes, that moments before had been just as human, as she searched for her two wayward scientists. The last time she had seen Jane or Eric had been breakfast when Beast had come to collect his friends for a long overdue meeting of minds.

  
The hallway opened up into the staff media room. The once warm room of butterscotch colored walls and comfy couches made for naps seemed dark an ominous as Darcy came skidding in. Remy LeBeau was still in his signature trench coat as he stood motionless in the center of the room, eyes locked on the armchair where, no doubt, a friend had simply ceased to exist right before his eyes. Normally when Darcy met up with her favorite Cajun brother from another mother, after a long separation it would end with her legs around his waist as she hugged every bit of loneliness from his eyes and only then marathon cooking lessons, followed by cuddles. (Remy had the best recipes this side of the Mason Dixon line, a fact both Mama and daughter Lewis exploited to the fullest.) This time neither one of them moved to initiate their traditional greeting. No matter how much they both needed a hug right now.

  
“Mon Dieu!” he whispered in his thick Cajun accent as he staggered back, and nearly toppled back on the couch. Red eyes slowly turned and locked on Darcy, as his jaw worked as he tried to put his whirling thoughts into words. It took a few minuets, but soon he gathered himself and his brain finally processed what his eyes were seeing.  
“Petite soeur?” It was both a question and an expression of relief. Darcy blinked, the first tear in the coming waterfall dripping from her lashes.

  
“Oh God,” she whispered, fisting a hand in the hem of her shirt and twisting tightly around her hand, letting the burn of fabric against flesh ground her. Faces of friends and family rushed through her mind, Jane, Eric, Storm, Mavi, her parents, the Professor; and she could not help the terrible thought that anyone of those faces could now be just like Jean and Kitty. With graceful ease Remy vaulted over the back of the sofa, to avoid passing the now empty arm chair, and gathered her tightly to his chest.  
Darcy clutched him desperately, allowing his familiar scent sooth her. Sandalwood, spearmint and the heavy scent of smoke. No doubt he had come straight to the mansion after an all-nighter in some sleazy underground casino. Hot tears dripped onto his black vest in tidal waves, sinking though the material to the purple silk of his shirt. Darcy grabbed on tighter burrowing deeper into Remy’s strong chest. The familiar tingle in her face and hands signaled the beginning of a panic attack.

  
“Breath, Cher. Remy is here,” he soothed, rubbing a strong hand up her back in soothing strokes. It felt like hours, that Darcy stood their wrapped in his arms; but in reality it was a handful of minuets. Echoing voices, heavy with tears, confusion, and sorrow reached her ears and she pulled back wiping at blotchy cheeks. Remy kept a hand on her bicep, as if he had also found an anchor in her.

  
“Who was it Remy?” she asked, finally her voice still thick from tears.

  
“Oh Merde! It is…was…Jubilee.” His voice broke, his red eyes squeezing closed. Remy had watched friends die before, but he never watched them spontaneously turn to dust. “She was talking to Rogue about setting up a shopping trip, and then she was just…gone.”

  
He lapsed into silence, and Darcy was hesitant to break it. Their friends deserved more than a moment of silence, they deserved to be whole and hearty laughing in unrestrained delight. Content in the fact that they were loved, that they had family no matter how rag-tag and batshit crazy they were. But they didn’t have that luxury, not yet. She didn’t want to seem heartless, as if she was simply brushing aside the missing, but somewhere in the house was her friends…be they dust or whole and distraught. They were somewhere in the maze of halls and she had to find them.

  
“Have you seen Jane, Eric, or Tempest?” she asked hopefully, her voice thick with emotion. A hope that was soon dashed, when Remy shook his scraggly dark head.

  
“No, go Cher. Find your friends. I shall try to find the Professor.” With that Remy pressed a quick bruising kiss to her forehead, and ducked out the door heading for the Professor’s office. With one more somber glance toward the wingback and a murmured prayer, Darcy ran through the open double doors.

  
The halls were congested with panicked students as they searched for and found friends amidst the chaos. A group of two girls and a boy were clustered together in a tight group hug, in the out cove beneath the stairs. Others zoomed past in continued search. Darcy was just passing the library, when the doors were yanked open and Bobby skidded out. He spotted Darcy over the head of a white haired girl.

  
“Rogue?!” he yelled over the din, unable to get through the wave of students. His voice was shrill and desperate, and Darcy felt some relief to be able to impart good news.

  
“Fine! Looking for you!” she called back as she broke through the throng, going further away from him but she pointed a hand back the way she came. Bobby’s relief was instantaneous, and his shoulders drooped as if a heavy weight had fallen away. Darcy quickly lost sight of him, when she took a hard turn down a side hallway that would lead to Dr. McCoy’s office.

  
The corridors leading to the offices were empty of students, and she reached the familiar door with a bronze plaque that read Dr. Hank McCoy in elaborate calligraphy, with ease. The door was left wide open, as if the occupants had left in a hurry. The office empty except for three abandoned white boards and a mountain of papers and notebooks left strewn across the desk. With searching eyes, Darcy wandered every inch of the room looking for any sign of ash. She very nearly cried when she found not even a speck of dust. It was no guarantee, but it was a good sign.

  
She found Mavi by accident, when Darcy darted out of the office. The resulting collision had been brutal, and painful with pointy elbows driving into soft squishy muscle and hard skulls ricocheting together. It nearly took Darcy to her knees, as her hand cradled her ringing head. Tempest righted herself first, reaching out to do the same with her victim and gave a soft cry of relief when she discovered who she plowed into. “Darce! Oh, thank God!”

  
Darcy echoed that sentiment, as she gave her friend a swift crushing hug, ignoring the throbbing in her skull and the engine grease that stained her friend’s tank top and faded jeans and painted her face. Mavi pulled back first, green eyes flicking over Darcy in concern.

  
In her pocket her phone gave a crescendo of rapid chirps. Fumbling with numb fingers, Darcy pulled the device free. Demanding texts from both of her parents, blinked up at her. Giving a hiccupping sob she punched out a short message in return. Darcy would call them later, as soon as some semblance of order had been restored. Something in Darcy eased with the knowledge her family was safe, but it did not abate, would not until she found her missing scientists.

  
Mavi pulled her head out of Storm’s empty office, and fixed her with an assessing gaze. “Your parents?”

  
Darcy gave a small smile of relief and nodded. “Yeah, they’re good. Flipping their shit, but good. Yours?”

Tempest gave a relieved smile. “Yeah, they’re good too.”

“Jane? Eric?” Darcy asked hopefully, as she swiped at the few tears that escaped with one hand and tucking her phone away with the other.

  
The other woman shook her head, setting her jaw stubbornly when her lower lip began to tremble and drawing in a deep breath to regain composure.

  
“Haven’t seen them. I was mediating Scott and Logan in the garage. Logan swiped his bike again and…oh what does it matter now?! Scott…Scott’s gone, Darcy. Just crumbled away right in front of us.” Tempest’s tone was sharp and cool. Almost clinical. Mavi had never been good with emotions, especially fear and she easily fell back on a tried and true defense mechanism. Her pale full face, smoothing into a stoic mask, kind eyes turning diamond hard. If Darcy didn’t know the complete emotional collapse that would follow when the dust settled, she would have thought her friend unfeeling.

Darcy had always chided her for pulling away from emotions; for letting a mask be her buffer to the world. Tempest had always been unmoving on the subject. Saying that there was little point in living the life of a X-Men if one could not harness emotion. Mavi had always been a firm believer in learning the when’s, why’s and how’s first; then sobbing to her hearts content. Now as the world was going batshit crazy around her, Darcy found she understood.

  
Darcy sniffed against the familiar burn of her nose that heralded the coming of tears. “Jean and Kitty too. In the kitchen.”

  
“ _Christ_.”

  
Darcy nodded, chewing at her bottom lip. “I saw Rogue, she was looking for Bobby and Logan. And Remy, they were in the media room with Jubilee…Remy went to find the Professor, and Bobby.” She purposefully didn’t mention the other occupant of the room and Mavi shook her head sadly. “I…I have to find Jane and Eric. I haven’t seen them since this morning. Beast’s office is empty…but they could still be…”

  
Darcy couldn’t bare to finish that sentence so she didn’t, as she began to stride purposefully across the marble toward the Professor’s office. If one person could find her wayward scientists it would be him. Mavi didn’t reply, just fell in beside her.

  
Never before had the mansion felt so vast, as they called out in search of missing friends, with both hope and trepidation as to what would await them. They met Pepper Potts and the Professor next, when the pair turned abruptly into the hall.

“Professor!” they both cried, when he rolled into sight.

For a moment, his face alight with relief. As they hurried to his side. He took one of their hand in each of his, and gave a firm squeeze as if to reassure himself that they were there. Behind him, Pepper Potts took a half step back, to give them some privacy.

“I am so glad, to see you both.”

“Ditto.” Darcy whispered, however she could not help but notice that he did not look as if he was glad to be seen.

To Darcy’s eyes Charles Xavier never looked older. His face pale and drawn in worry. Those kind blue eyes, that always seemed to glimmer with humor and kindness were dull and shadowed. When they locked eyes, she knew. He had felt their minds fade away. Kitty, Jean, Scott, and so many others; he had felt a door slam shut. Her heart ached for him, and she wanted to offer so form of comfort. But their were no words she could say, that would ease his pain. Every student, that had ever graced the halls of his home, had been family. No matter how many times they stumbled, or disappointed him, they were his; and now in a single blink some of them had faded away as if they had never been their to begin with.

 

  
His blue eyes shimmered with tears. Jean and Kitty flashed through her mind, bent over with elbows on the island as they laughed over cookies and mimosas. Then as if a stiff breeze had blown in from the open French doors, they floated away with it; of nearly being upended by Rogue, finding Remy gazing down at what had once been bubbly Jubilee, Bobby flying out of the library in search of his girlfriend, it all flashed through her mind. Her eyes widened in horror and she knew with a sick twist of her stomach that he had been searching her mind. No doubt taking comfort in the voices that were still present and searching for the lost. Charles winced, squeezing his eyes shut as a single tear escaped his eye.

  
“Jean, Scott, Jubilee and Kitty.” He whispered, his voice raw and painful, pulling his hands free with a final squeeze.

  
Tempest folded her lips into a thin white line, and offered the only platitude she could. “I’m so sorry, Professor.”

  
Darcy sniffled and softly asked. “You felt it. Didn’t you?”

  
Behind him, Pepper gasped turning orange tinted eyes on the man, a hand coming up to clamp over her mouth. A glimmering sheen of tears flooded her eyes, washing away the glow and leaving them with only warm sympathy.

  
“Yes,” he sounded so broken, so utterly defeated it broke Darcy’s heart. She wanted nothing more than to wrap him in quilts and feed him soup until he felt ready to face the world. “Jane is well, Darcy. She is searching for you. If you remain here, she will find you in two minuets. But I must go, Storm is searching for me. I must help her gather what remains of the staff and students.”

  
With that he rolled past them, his bald head bowed and shoulders slumped. Silence descended on the hall as he disappeared from sight. Darcy watched, as the CEO of Stark Industries gazed down at the glittering diamond on her left hand and whispered ‘Tony’, before her knees gave way. She would have crashed to the unyielding marble, if Tempest hadn’t caught her with a gentle burst of air and lowered her gently to the floor. Not that the woman noticed, as she clasped her engagement ring to her chest and the tears came fast and hard.

  
The heavy stomp of running feet echoed down the corridor as Jane appeared from the stairwell that lead to the guest quarters, Beast on her heels. Eric’s familiar sandy head bringing up the rear. An explosive feeling of relief washed through her, dancing along the iron ropes wrapping around her lungs causing them to unfurl and allowing her to breath again.

  
“Darcy!” Jane screamed, in relief as she barreled toward her. Jane’s tiny form plowed into her, nearly taking both of them off their feet.

“I’m so glad your, okay.” She whispered, pulling back long enough to look over her intern for any signs of damage. She wouldn’t find any, the only damage done had been emotional. There were no words to describe the feeling, the absolute confusion and the sick feeling of helplessness that came with watching friends melt away.  
After another bruising hug, Jane pulled back her brown eyes gleaming with that familiar manic twinkle; fisted hands perched on hips she flicked her eyes on the inhabitants of the arts wing.

  
“Now, can anyone tell me what the ever living fuck is going on?”

* * *

 

Everything changed for Laura Honeycutt in a dingy roadside bar just outside of Decatur, Georgia. It had been a spur of the moment decision, born of a need to get out of the car and to drink away the horror that was cousin Daniel’s Gone with the Wind themed wedding. She was going to have nightmares of hoopskirts, Confederate uniforms, and faux southern accents for years to come. He caught her eye over a tumbler of watered down Jack. Broad shoulders hunched over a beer, a finger absently drawing a circle in the condensation, dark hair mused from one to many drags of his palm and a set of biceps that made her mouth water. It was his eyes however, a beautiful blue-gray (even under the glow of the dim florescent bulbs), that caught her attention. They were a storm of dancing shadows dappled with icy glints of self-loathing. It was a look she knew well, she had seen it in the always troubled eyes of the Wolverine.

  
Laura spent the better part of an hour watching him out of the corner of her eye, before she had downed the rest of her drink, glorifying in the warm burn of Tennessee whiskey, slid from her peeling vinyl booth and took the empty stool beside him. It had taken time to drag him from the abyss, but her personal brand of mocking humor and snark had eventually tickled a small curl of his lips. They didn’t speak of anything of consequence, Laura told him nothing of her mutation and Clint mentioned nothing of being a sniper or S.H.I.E.L.D. The night had ended ironically at the Archer Motel. Of course she wouldn’t find that out until after she unearthed a crumpled pack of matches, with a number and the name Barton scrawled across the flap, from her suitcase when the second plus sign appeared.

  
Laura had laughed herself stupid when she found out about his cupid fetish, drawing every eye in the café to them. Clint had grinned indulgently, easily ignoring the prying eyes with ease, and stole a forkful of mango cheesecake from her plate. Still so delighted with the new discovery, she didn’t swat his foraging fork away as he continued to steal bites of her dessert. He, however hadn’t taken the mutant thing quite so well, when she had taken him back to the manor.

  
Thankfully, Clint’s anxiety had nothing to do with her powers and everything to do with his employer. The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, was not of the opinion that you left super powered dogs lie. No, apparently they deliberately poked them with sticks by indexing them. As if mutants (and other supers)were some endangered species that needed to be catalogued for the continued survival. Or the world’s continued survival. It was the first, and- God willing-only, time Laura understood Magneto.

When Clint had first seen her powers, he had gaped as multiple projections of herself had surrounded him, one of them reaching out and grabbing a handful of his ass. He gave a very unmanly squeak, that had a bunch of pre-teen girls in stiches. Then he grinned, leaning close and whispered. “Oh we could have so much fun with this.”  
Falling through a portal and landing ass first in a tree had cured him of amusement. That same group of girls were now cheering. Laura gave a flourishing bow before she watched with a satisfied smile as Clint was forced to climb down, grumbling all the way. When he stood, pouting, before her coated in sap and leaves, and rubbing his ass; she knew it was only a matter of time before Clint Barton snarked his way into her heart.

  
So it was of little surprise that in the span of the next twelve months she became a fiancé, newlywed and a new mother. Her days being known as Psychout exchanged for playing Ma Barton on a farm in Iowa.

  
Laura would admit to pouting at times when her husband hurried out to save the world with only a quiver full of arrows, a bow, and a deadly Russian assassin for protection. It was human nature that a woman having spent nearly two years of her life with the X-Men, would feel tiny pinpricks of envy. After all Laura, had once spent weeks knee deep in the mud in Nepal after Lehnsherr’s cronies had blown threw leaving death and destruction in their wake and had been boots on the ground for more than one battle and natural disaster.

  
Laura had grown accustomed to being in the thick of things, and she would guiltily admit to missing it when the cows needed milking or the Billy the goat chewed through the drainpipe or got himself stuck up the old apple tree behind the barn, again. Then a mewling cry or the call of Mommy would reach her ears, and the nostalgia would fade until the next time Billy wound up on the barn roof. But having Cooper, then Lila, and finally little Nathaniel had been well worth the price of enforced solitude and daredevil goat.  
Then when she was nearing the end of her pregnancy with Nathaniel, everything began to unravel. It started with the Avenger’s arriving on her doorstep like a litter of abandoned, muscular, kittens. By dinner time she had a full house of spies, assassins, a soldier, awkward scientist, and a billionaire; all sitting at her table enjoying her roast chicken. Clint had shot her a knowing look over Lila’s head as he cut up the meat on her Merida plate. Laura had rolled her eyes, but didn’t deny that she loved the chaos.  
Before he had flown off to save the world from global extinction by Terminator, Clint had spoken of retirement. As much as Laura wanted her husband home and safe in their bed every night and demolishing random sections of their house for “improvements”, she had known it wouldn’t last. As much as Clint loved her and their little family, it was something she had never once doubted, he was a man of action. He, even more than Laura, needed to be in the thick of things.

  
Not for the glory or the adrenalin rush, but for the simple fact that he couldn’t stomach to be anywhere else when the chips were down. Clint would never be able to kick back on their sofa with a beer and simply watch the next invasion in high definition with Nate on his lap. Well he could, and if she asked him too he would; but the guilt would slowly crush him. It would destroy the man she loved, and one day whether he said it or not he would resent her for it, and that was a chance she was not willing to take. Laying in bed the night before he had his team would depart, Laura began to regret agreeing to this isolation. She couldn’t help but wonder if they had been more than a secret, if things would be different. Better somehow. Clint had felt all the safety warranted when the agency he had dedicated his life too had turned out to be nothing more than an illusion. Laura hadn’t bothered to raise her opinion. She knew her Chickadee well and his righteous anger was a smokescreen for his guilt. The haunting questions as he mentally reviewed each op, wondering if it had been SHIELD or Hydra pulling the strings. The only sense of relief Clint had was to know his family was safe. So Laura held her tongue. She never gave a hint at her doubts, but privately Laura’s mind still stumbled over ‘what-ifs’.

  
Come dawn they were gone. Three days later she banished Cooper and Lila to lure Billy down from the apple tree as she grimly watched Sokovia fall. She would later learn of one of the twins death, of the new facility Tony was opening only miles from the Institute, and that Clint had hung up his bow.

  
In truth, she loved having her husband there every morning when she woke up and every night when she laid her head on the pillow for a few hours sleep. Was grateful Clint was there to take the four o’clock feeding. Cooper and Lila had been in a tizzy to have their father tuck them in every night and teach them how to hold their tiny new bows.  
That tinge of regret once again reared its head. Standing at the kitchen window watching her handsome Chickadee climbing down from the barn roof with a baying Billy tucked under one, still drool worthy, arm as their eldest cheered; Laura could not help but wonder what they had denied their children in their quest to keep them safe. Clint was their hero, and they looked at him as if he could lasso the moon with a single shot from his bow. What had they lost, when they had to watch their father disappear down the gravel drive for months on end? Laura was fast coming to the conclusion that they had been wrong. There had been other options. Especially as far as safety went. Be it Hydra, aliens, or motherfucking Magneto she was strong enough to protect them, and they were quickly becoming strong enough to protect themselves.

  
Cooper had begun to present two months after Ultron. He had scared the life out of his father when he had sneezed and disappeared, reappearing sprawled flat on his back in Billy’s pen. When Lila presented, it was so slowly that both Laura and Clint had been none the wiser. After all it wasn’t unusual for a child to jabber away at animals. Lila had neglected to tell them that they replied back. Laura hadn’t figured it out until her daughter was nearing five, when she had brought home an injured chipmunk. The poor little thing had been trembling, but seemed to soothe only when her girl was close by. It was when in the middle of the night, she had awoken them and lead them to the small cage that had become S’more’s the chipmunk’s home and said “He’s cold mommy,” and “he wants worms, Daddy.”

  
When asked how she had known that she had simply shrugged and said. “He told me so. It would be rude not to listen, Daddy.”  
(When asked why Billy kept getting on the barn roof, Lila giggled and seriously said “He sees better from a distance.” Laura had barely kept her composure as she gazed at her husband out of the corner of her eye. Clint had not been so amused.)

Soon Lila had made herself a pack, when she came home from the neighbor’s with two chubby German Sheppard puppies and a stray, elegant blue eyed gray and white, Himalayan cat at her heels. They obeyed her every whim. There had not been a single accident on Laura’s floor or chewed up shoe to be found. Lila ruled her pack with a loving _Band-Aid_ covered fist.

As they grew stronger, Laura’s convictions grew. She had even deiced to talk to Clint about leaving the farm, and Iowa. Soon enough they would not be able to delay sending Cooper and Lila to the Xavier’s and the last place she would want to be was Iowa.  
She never got the chance to bring up the subject.

It was over dinner months later, after Lagos and talks of the Accords began, that Laura seen the telling twitch in Clint’s left temple and felt a change in the winds. Within weeks a sheepish Steve Rogers was on her doorstep, rubbing the back of his neck and ears tinted pink in embracement at arriving during dinner. The epic smack down that followed, in Germany had landed her husband and all members of Team Cap (beside Barnes and Cap himself) on some floating GITMO called the Raft, and branded as traitors.

  
Laura Barton was not so easily defeated.

  
Charles Xavier, had listened patiently on the phone as Laura had explained her husbands predicament. A long month later Clint and Scott Lang had been released and put under house arrest after the Professor had hired a little known firm in Hells Kitchen. Upon taking the case Matt Murdock had proceeded to publicly deride Secretary Ross, the United Nations, and the hundred some countries that had signed the Sokovia Accords. He was a force to reckoned with, as he appeared on nearly every show crushing every pundit, foolish enough to engage him in debate, beneath the heel of his scuffed loafers. By the end of the first week, Murdock had secured offers of asylum from nearly a dozen nations for the rogue avengers.

  
Ross had been incensed.

Especially when Murdock and his business partner Foggy Nelson had somehow gotten Dr. Betty Ross to step out of her self-imposed exile. Beautiful with her dark hair brushed to a high shine and curling around her shoulders, dressed in a perfectly pressed pencil skirt and blouse, and blue eyes swimming with tears; she told the true story of the much feared Hulk. Chin held high, she had publicly and viciously called for the government to hold her father accountable. When asked by a somewhat frightened host if their was a chance for reconciliation, Betty had laughed. Those same blue eyes that had been so warm when speaking of her lost love, turned glacial and replied. “There is nothing in this world he could give or do to make me forgive him.”

When asked about her former love, Betty had momentarily lost her composer. Her delicate features falling into heavy lines of longing and sorrow. "He was and is, still the best man I've ever known. Probably will ever know. But I'm no longer what he needs."

Thunderbolt Ross lived up to his nickname after seeing his only child slander him so publicly and with such malice. He tried to reply, by setting his own interview and pleading for his distraught and overwhelmed daughter to contact him.

  
Betty got the last laugh, when she dumped all her father’s old papers, letters, journal entries, and voice mails onto the internet. No of which painted the retired General in a flattering light. Before she once again slipped off the radar, before the government had been able to level charges. 

The white house however, soon after cried Uncle, if only to have Murdock cease his attacks, as public opinion had once again began to turn in favor of the “vigilantes”. The Secretary of State had been a picture of childish petulance as he stood behind the President during the press conference that announced to the world the two vigilantes known as Hawkeye and Ant Man were being removed from their high security prison in the middle of the Atlantic, and returned to their families. But that the vigilantes known by the code names: Captain America, The Winter Solider, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch were still wanted fugitives. A number had flashed on the screen asking for tips and sightings and offering a handsome reward for any information that would lead to capture. It was truly a wonder, that arrests had not followed.

  
However Murdock had dealt a heavier blow than President Ellis and Secretary Ross had anticipated. The Secretary of States’ following string of appearances had only made things worse, as he was now verbally accosted by protestors at every public appearance he made.

  
Following the shit-storm that had been rained down on the Accords both Canada and of all places Germany began the tedious legal process extricate themselves. It had been a devastating blow, that a close ally of the country that had instigated the Accords was now determined to be free of its sanctions.  
A month after Clint returned to the farm, Tony Stark landed a quinjet behind their barn. The resulting confrontation had been…destructive. Lila had taken one look at Tony and burst into a riotous display of anger, that would make her Auntie Nat proud, as she pounded tiny fists against the billionaire’s legs screaming: “Bad man! Iron Man's a bad man! Go away! Go, no one wants you here!”

  
Stark had looked down at the girl with wide brown eyes, brimming with anger and hurt until Laura had pulled her daughter away. She offered no apologies (grateful her daughter had used her fists and not ordered her pack to attack) as she turned leaving him on the porch and slamming the door in his face. Clint’s reception hadn’t been much kinder, as he dropped from the porch roof arrow trained at his former team mates’ throat. Stark had tried to apologize, in his own left handed way. In other words he brought gifts. Instead of verbalizing his contempt once more, Clint jerked his bow to the side, loosed his arrow. The sharp blades leaving a cut across Iron Man’s cheek that was sure to scar.

  
Tony had simply touched the cut, his dark eyes swimming with betrayal as the archer turned on his heel and disappeared. He left quickly after that and never tried to contact the Barton family again. The Barton's sent no card when Tony finally married Pepper Potts, with only War Machine standing up for him. For a moment when Laura had seen the footage on the news, she had seen Stark turn his eyes over to the grooms side of the venue and for a brief moment looked like a broken man. Laura's pity was short lived when she looked in the shadowed eyes of her own husband. Tony's quest to be the hero the world needed, and assuage his own guilt, had injured more than just his own feelings.  

It was a beautiful mid-summer day in Iowa, when another space ship was spotted over New York and then in Scotland. Laura had never seen her husband so agitated. He spent hours methodically cleaning his bow, one calculating eye on the television and the other fixed out the window at the horizon. Quietly, Laura had begun to pack. Stuffing Nathaniel’s diaper bag with formula, diapers and clothes. Cooper, Lila, and her things went into a large single suitcase. While she carefully dug out and packed Clint’s spare gear in an old army duffel. She could read the writing on the wall, and she was damn well going to be prepared.

  
By the time she had made it down the stairs carrying his bag over one shoulder, Clint was on the porch bent over the burner phone.

He jumped when she dropped the bag at his feet. Clint’s eyes, now a worried gunmetal gray, flicked from the bag at his feet to his wife.

His lips tipped up in a valiant attempt at a smirk, but only came out as a grimace. “Finally kicking me out, Psychout?”

She rolled her eyes, and snorted. ”If I didn’t kick you out when you brought a former Russian assassin home for Thanksgiving, I think your safe.”

This time a true smile tilted his lips. “True.”

“You have to go.” She said, softly so the kids didn’t over hear.

Clint shook his head, dumping the phone on the rocking chair and standing. Coming forward to clasp her biceps in a strong grip. “No, Laura. I have to be here.”

Laura wiggled until she could lift her hands up to cradle his face. “They need you. Steve, Nat, Wanda; they need you there.”

“So do you, and the kids.” He argued hotly.

“We will always need you, Clint. But this, here I can handle. So go Hawkass, go save the world.”

Laura’s smile was sad, as she gazed at him, but her eyes were resolved.

Clint shook his head stubbornly. “Can’t. House arrest remember?” he questioned pointing down to the tracker just visible beneath the hem of his left pant leg.

Laura scoffed, pulling back and flicking his nose, ignoring his indignant cry of protest. “Oh please, Chickadee; as if I didn’t know you’ve been putting that on Lucky’s collar every morning.”

 

He gaped at her, his mouth dropping open and eyes wide. “How?”

Laura snorted, and smacked a hand against his chest shoving him playfully back a step. “You maybe a spy, darling,” She grinned cheekily. “but I’m a mom. I see all and know all.”

  
Clint huffed, as he stepped back and raked a hand through his hair. Laura saw a flash of white teeth, as he gave an involuntary laugh. The boards of the porch creaked beneath her feet as she moved to rocking chair and the discarded phone. Clint didn’t attempt to stop her, not that he could have, as she picked it up and gazed at the screen.

It was from Nat, with only coordinates and a simple “We could use your eyes.”

Laura’s brow furrowed as she gazed at the longitude and latitude. “Wakanda?”

Clint glared at her playfully, but their was no joy there; hadn’t been for months. Sure he was happy when he was with the kids or cuddled up with her; but that playful spark she always found waiting for in those beautiful eyes was gone. It brought back memories of the months following Loki’s brainwashing. When he had been sidelined while he “recovered”. It had lasted until SHIELD had once again needed his skills. It had taken months for that flame to return, and since the Raft it had once again been snuffed.

“You’ve been holding out on me haven’t you? You can read my mind.” He accused, with a pout.

Laura scoffed, as she settled down in the rocker, watching him pace. His boots scuffing and shuffling along with every move.

“As if you’d have anything in their worth reading.”

He rolled his eyes, that teasing expression fading away in a single breath. His shoulders were tense, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“Clint, I can’t see you like this anymore. You need this. You need to be Hawkeye, it’s as much apart of you as me and the kids. It’s an integral part of who you are. So go, please.”

He starred at her for a few heavy moments, as he read every tick and flutter of her body searching for deception. He found none.  
He ran a hand down his tired face. “Your sure?”

“Clint, if you don’t go I’m going to open a portal and kick you threw.” She threatened, her voice tinged with equal parts fondness and exasperation.  
He squinted at her. “I thought you could only open portals to places you’ve seen.”

She grinned. “I can’t, but I’m sure you can find your way to Africa, just as well from Timbuktu.”

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

Laura caught his eyes, gazing deeply into his as she stood and stepped forward. Her arms twining around his waist, slipping her thumbs into his belt loops. “After you leave, I’m taking the kids to Xavier’s. You know as well as I do, it’s the safest place for us right now.”

Clint wanted to object, say aliens had already invaded there twice now, but he could not deny that a house full of supers watching out for his family would be a welcome relief.

The good-byes had been quick but heartfelt. Clint hugged Cooper and Lila tight, pressing kisses to their heads, before cuddling Nate to his chest for a long moment.  
“I’ll be back soon. Keep safe, and listen to your mom.”

After securing his tracker to Billy, this time, he climbed in his truck and disappeared down the shaded drive.

While she and Clint had been talking, Cooper had teleported the suitcase down from the bedroom, Lila had leashed her dogs Lucky and Daisy, and had tucked Carly into her car carrier. Nate bag was hooked over the extended handle of the rolling suitcase, and the family was ready for their first trip to the Institute.  
The portal opened into the back garden, behind the kitchens. Stepping through, Laura did not have time to exalted in her return and the kids didn’t even have a chance to gape up at the ivy covered manor; when screams reached her ears.

Laura was just about to reopen the portal, when a low growl drifted to her ears. She whipped around, automatically doubling herself, and found Logan crouched in a defensive stance, claws extended.

Seeing who it was Logan’s stance shifted, his claws retracting. “Jesus Christ, Psychout! You can’t do shit like that!”  
Lila gasped, Cooper snicker, Nate drooled.

“Language!” Laura scolded, glaring at the older man.

Logan rolled his eyes and waved a dismissive hand. “Kid, you have got the worst damn timing in the world.”

The screams and cries rang louder in her ears now, as a crying boy barely older than Cooper came skidding out calling for Danny.  
Logan winced, and gave a heavy sigh. He looked tired.

He tramped through the flowerbed, his heavy boots crushing the petunias into the dirt, until he stood before her.

“Kid, I don’t have a damn clue what’s happenin’, all I fucking know is Summers’ just turned to dust; and he ain’t the only one.”

* * *

 

 Morgan.

Morgan Stark.

The name haunted her, repeating in her mind like the echoing pound of a drum. Tony Stark wanted a baby. He wanted a family. With her. Of course he would tell her in such a left handed way as about a dream about having to pee. But the fact remained, that he wanted a baby, their baby. Or at least he had. Pepper, bit hard at her lip and silently wrung her hands. She had no way of knowing if he had survived the space ship or the culling. For all she knew he could be dust trapped in the vacuum of space, forever lost to her by a snap of Thanos’ fingers.

It had taken a call from Bruce to explain the devastation that had occurred at the school for gifted youngsters. When the dust had settled…(Pepper winced at the unfortunate turn of phrase and silently cursed herself) over half of the staff and a third of the students were gone.

Charles, the warm and wonderful man that had so patiently guided her through the rigors of mastering the powers caused by her exposer to Extremis, had been utterly despondent. As he solemnly went about gathering the remains of the staff, Pepper had slipped out into the hall, digging through the pocket, of the same hoodie she had been wearing the last time she saw her husband, and unearthing her cell phone.

If her head had been clearer, she would have realized trying to call Tony was futile, but she had been desperate. It was after the sixth attempt that she finally came to her senses. Even if Tony was still alive contact would be impossible. So it was with burning eyes and trembling hands, that she had told FRIDAY to contact Happy. He never answered, and Pepper didn’t need a sign to realize he too was gone. (Later, when she had worked up the courage, she would find his ashes spread across the drivers seat of the town car. The keys still in the ignition and his book draped over the gearshift.)

She had been near collapse when Friday had chimed in with a call from Wakanda.

  
It was again her foolish heart that had her answering with: “Tony, please tell me it’s you.”

It had been Bruce. His voice thick with regret. They explanation that followed had her falling to her knees, her breath coming short and fast.

The same Thanos Bruce had warned Tony of only the previous morning, had succeeded obliterating the world’s population by half. Pepper could only listen, unable to speak, as he recounted the battle of Wakanda. Of Visions murder. Thor’s return and how he had driven an ax through the bastards chest. But in the end, even that hadn’t been enough to end Thanos, and he snapped is fingers. Bruce spoke softly of watching as friends disappeared right before his eyes. Steve had even watched as the best friend he had gone to war for, dissolved in a cascade of dust. Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, they were all gone too.

Earths mightiest heroes had failed.

She heard Natasha’s familiar voice in the background, calling the man away. Pepper didn’t hear his rushed good-byes or reassurances over the dull pounding in her ears. She didn’t know how long she was there before she was pulled to her feet and lead into the Professor’s office.

It seemed it was a day for being caught off guard, or so Pepper mused when she had looked up into the seething brown eyes of Dr. Jane Foster. The tiny astrophysicist was seated on the far side of the room on a sofa, crammed between Dr. Selvig and a young brunette she could only assume was her faithful intern. It appeared that even though they sat hip to hip, that was not close enough for Jane as she had each of her arms looped through one of her friend’s. They had met only once before in the lobby of a hotel in Brazil, about a year before the Convergence, but Pepper could not help but take comfort in a familiar face. But she would not be the only one. Laura Barton, whom Pepper had met a handful of times after the fall of Sokovia when Tony had been trying to sell her on the idea of buying their own farm (they had compromised and bought a place in Aspen instead), strode into the office with a purposeful stride. Psychout, as she was known to them, had been greeted as warmly as could be expected given the circumstances. The final trickle of people brought no more surprises.  
  
The golden rays of sunlight spilling through the windows had felt like salt in an open wound, as Pepper slowly lowered herself into a vacant armchair.It was without prompting, that she delivered the particulars in a droning monotone. The others sat in silence. There was nothing to say, nothing that could be said.

It was Dr. McCoy’s voice that had been the small stones that had unleashed an avalanche. For hours the conversation flowed from hypothesis ,that Pepper could never hope to understand, to plans of attack. With already frayed nerves it was not unexpected that arguments were sparked. The meeting was quickly spiraling into chaos when the Professor squinted his eyes, and the voices stopped. Logan stood frozen before a man called Cyclops his mouth still open but refusing to move. Cyclops stood with one metal fist pulled back in a punch that no doubt would have sent Logan into the wall if not threw it. Dark eyes turned and glowered at Charles.

  
Pepper couldn’t help but jump at the sudden caseation of hostiles. After that the exchange had been less debate and more cordial.

It was Foster’s intern (who she would later find out was Darcy Lewis or Shockwave) that set off the chain of events that lead to her being strapped tight in a jump seat on the Blackbird.

“Hourglass.”

Pepper and Selvig had exchanged a baffled look as they appeared to be the only ones left out of the secret.

Jane frowned down at her friend. “You said that was a legend.”

Darcy shrugged, lifting green eyes up from her clasped hands. “So was Asgard.”

Jane’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

A woman by the name of Rogue sat forward on her boyfriend’s lap, with a frown. “But according to the story she was a Lady in the court of Henry VIII. She would be over five hundred years old.”

  
“Five hundred and ninety four as of March 16th.” Charles’ voice was soft, barely a whisper as he turned his chair to gaze out the window. “I have not seen her since I was a lad of twenty seven.”

  
“She’s real?”

  
“She’s alive?”

  
“Indeed she is. Her name is Aurelia Seville born in Caernarfon, Wales on March 16,1425. I once believed the X-Gene first occurred in the beginnings of the twentieth century. I was quite mistaken. The mutation only became more prevalent as the century’s passed. In the times of her youth mutants were scare, none would risk exposing their powers else they’d be branded a witch.”

  
Charles tented his fivers and rested his chin upon them. “Many were killed when their powers presented in childhood. Fear of a child being touched by the devil, was very prevalent. As was disease. It would have been quite easy to explain away the cause as a simple fever. Some the had the misfortune to be reviled were hunted down by villagers, or the church. It was a very dark time.”

  
“But Professor, how is it possible she is still alive? Is she like Logan?”

  
“No Rogue, Aurelia is not like Logan. Her mutation is unlike any I have yet seen. Our Kitty,” here his voice broke. “had a variant of such a power. Of being able to send a consciousness back in time. Aurelia can do the same, but she does not need contact to do so."

"How do we find her?" Foster's intern questioned, dark green eyes looking up from her clasped hands. 

"Cerebro." Dr. McCoy pipped up, pulling off his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. Pepper shot him a look of deep confusion. 

Charles nodded, his brow furrowed and expression pensive. " It will not be easy. Aurelia has hid from me for many decades and I fear that she will not wish to be found. But we must try, we have no other options. The Avengers are broken. Thanos has retreated with the infinity stones. Aurelia is our only hope. We must find her."

Cerebro, it turned out was a machine the Professor utilized to find mutants in need. Pepper had felt quite out of place clustered between Darcy Lewis (Foster's intern) and a scowling Laura Barton, and her children, in the hall outside the doors that housed the interface. Darcy was quietly huddled in conversation with Faster, Selvig, and a Cajun accented man named Remy. Little Cooper Barton had spared Pepper a wane smile as he dug through a diaper bag for a snack for his little brother. Lila had disregarded her with a sniff and flip of her hair, choosing to sit on the floor at her mother's feet texting on her tiny purple cell phone. 

For the first time since she had become Tony Stark's assistant, Pepper wished she was invincible. So with her blue eyes locked on the scuffed floor, she had been startled when little Nate had been thrust into her arms. Laura had given a small grin and held up a jar of strained apricots.

"You mind? I didn't bring a highchair." 

Pepper had stuttered, before simply nodding; not able to find her words. 

Laura had grinned, and popped open the jar and placed a heaping spoonful of mushy fruit in her son's open mouth. The boy dribbled a bit down his chin and clapped his hand and smacked his lips before declaring, "Mo!" 

It would be after his snack, with Pepper sitting down with her back against the wall little Nathaniel curled up on her lap, that Pepper would learn that Clint was safe and making his way to Wakanda to link up with what remained of the Avengers. She would also be surprised by the sudden warmth in her chest, when she gazed down at the oblivious two and half year old trying to gnaw off her thumb. They would spend hours in the hall waiting for Charles and Hank to emerge. They did so in the wee hours of the morning, long after the Barton children had been taken up stairs and tucked into bed by their mother.

The news had not been promising. It seemed in the chaos of Thanos' culling it was difficult for the professor to get a lock on any specific mind, regardless of his advanced powers. It would take the better part of three days for Charles to find her. He had found Pepper crowed around a table in the garden with Dr.'s Foster and Selvig, Darcy, Mavi Bishop (a woman who also answered to Tempest), and the Barton family. His face still held a solemn countenance as he rolled onto the patio. 

"You've found her." Darcy spoke up, it wasn't a question but a simple stating of facts as she set aside her glass of lemonade.  

Charles' answering smile was small. "I have."

He smiled in thanks, when Pepper handed him a icy glass of iced tea. "Ah, thank you dear. Yes, I have located Hourglass. Hank is entering the coordinates into Blackbird's GPS. I believe she awaits your arrival."

Dr. Foster sent him a confused look and Charles explained. "As I have mentioned, Aurelia has hid from me and Cerebro for decades. Even to me she remains a paradox. Her powers are raw and untamed. I do not believe even she knows the full extent of them. "

Pepper had been surprised when he had turned to bottomless blue eyes on her and requested that she go along with Dr. Foster, Tempest, Psychout, and Shockwave. She had been even more surprised when Beast had arrived a few minuets later with a uniform that had once belonged to Jean Grey and a pair of worn boots. It was a request she couldn't refuse and soon enough she was passing my Laura as she hugged her children, and board the X-Jet. Lewis and Foster were already at the controls when Pepper arrived, going through a pre-flight check list.  She chose a seat near the cockpit and shrugged on the shoulder straps and buckling in. 

  
Now hours into the flight she was staring off into space, until the diamonds on her finger glinted in the dull rays of the setting sun, that drifted in through the windows. Beside her was Tempest with her dark tangled ponytail, dressed in her X-Men uniform and grease splattered boots. The familiar smell of motor oil wafted to her nose, bringing with it the fresh burn of tears. No matter how many showers or how much aftershave he wore, Tony skin always had the faintest scent of motor oil.During their break that scent had haunted her. No matter the detergent or how many times it was sent to the cleaner, that faint barely discernible hint of Tony still clung to her clothes. In a desperate attempt to free herself she had purchased a new wardrobe, but come morning when she dressed that smell still tickled her nose. Tony had lingered, no matter how many times she tried to scrub him away and in the end, she was forced to admit that she didn’t want him too.

A heavy weight nudged gently against her foot and she looked up into the warm eyes of Laura Barton.

  
Pepper offered the younger woman a strained smile. Laura gave her a look up understanding that only fellow worried spouse could manage. Her eyes once again fell to her rings, and she remembered the comforting weight of little Nate Barton resting against her chest; and promised herself that there would be a little Morgan Stark set lose upon the world.

Even if she had to choke the life from Thanos with her bare hands to do it.

* * *

 

 


End file.
